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war on drugs

12:00am

Cops & Courts

On today's Your Call, we’ll revisit Rose Aguilar’s conversation with Eugene Jarecki, filmmaker behind the documentary, The House I Live In, which “captures heart-wrenching stories from individuals at all levels of America’s War on Drugs.” The drug war has lasted 40 years, cost 1 trillion dollars, and led to over 45 million arrests. But what has it accomplished? Join the conversation on the next Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

12:00am

War on Drugs

On today's Your Call, we’ll talk about the money behind the drug war. The U.S. government spent over $15 billion dollars in 2010. So how is that money spent? Reason Magazine reporter, Mike Riggs, argues that industries like beer and alcohol, private prisons, drug testing, and addiction recovery owe their profits to the war on drugs. And their lobbyists spend heavily to maintain the status quo. So what do you want to know about the money spent on the war on drugs? Join us at 10am PST or leave a comment here. It’s Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Politics

In 1971, President Richard Nixon declared drug users public enemy number one. Young, white, middle-class kids were openly using recreational drugs, and long-held stigmas about drug use were shrinking, especially in the Bay Area. Public perception typically connected drugs with protest culture and the social rebellion of the '60s and '70s. To then-president Richard Nixon, and many others, it was a sign of society coming apart at the seams.

PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: We must wage total war on what I have called public enemy number one: the problem of dangerous drugs.